Apr 04
Everyone,
The day was beautiful today. 80 degrees and a nice stiff wind to keep it cooler. The kids went to the park today. (Twice for the boys.) We played with friends. I cleaned and organized my pantry. Let me say that again.
I cleaned and organized my pantry.
Seriously, I wish I would have taken before and after pictures. Then I would have submitted it to my friend Angie’s blog and her 10 minute Monday meme. Except this project took me a lot longer than 10 minutes. Partly because 3 kids need attention sometimes (I’m watching a friend’s little boy on Mondays and Wednesdays for a few months. Yay pocket cash!) and because it was just that bad.
I took everything out. I washed the shelves. I took out everything in my food cupboard in the kitchen. I washed those shelves. Then I decided what I use the most (tomato sauce, re-fried beans, canned chicken, peanut butter, ketchup) and what I use the least (dried pinto beans, expired boxes of rice, bottled marinade) and swapped them. So now all my most used items are in the kitchen where I use them. And the rarely used items are in the pantry so I can pull them out by leaning around the corner and reaching into the pantry.
Actually, I don’t have to do that anymore either! I cleaned out in front of the pantry so it no longer looks like the pantry threw up it’s contents and we just left it there. Because for awhile, that was true. But not today!
I also vacuumed the carpet (???) in the bottom and washed the floor right outside the pantry. Because even though it’s been covered in boxes and tissue boxes and paper towel rolls for months, it still was dirty. Why is that?
And even though I did all this cool stuff, I am crabby. In a mood. Cross. I’m not sure why. It’s been kind of lingering too. (Hence no blog posts this past week. I’ve been too crabby to write. And that’s saying something.) I have a few ideas why, but nothing to report to you. Sorry lovely readers…my own inner turmoil here.
I will tell you something that annoys me…there is a neighborhood cat that uses our flower box as a litter box. I HATE that. I don’t want to be scooping up cat poop from an unknown critter. I pick up my dog’s poop because I’m a responsible dog owner. But annoyed that I have to scoop someone else’s pet’s poop too. (I only scoop it because the kids like to run around in the flower box and I don’t like them running through a known poop zone.)
In conclusion, clean pantry. Sunny day. Crabby mood.
Any questions?
Safire
Safirecleaning
Mar 15
Everyone,
With spring just around the corner here (bird singing, trees budding) I thought the house could use a really good spring cleaning. We’re picking a room a week to focus on. And this week was the kids’ room! (All 3 kids still sleep in the same room. And yes, they all sleep pretty well. Yes, the boys are still in cribs [because they can be]. Yes, we will move them apart eventually.)
I put Butterfly and Professor in charge of washing the walls and the baseboards while I washed the windows with Pirate. Juice moved and vacuumed under all the beds. I cleaned all the pictures and got rid of the cobwebs. Juice gutted the closet and swapped everything from the other room’s closet into their closet. See, I tend to use the stuff in their closet more (no clothes are in their closet, it’s all storage) and with 2 cribs, a bed, a rocking chair, a big toy horse, a book case, a toy piano and a standing lamp in their room, there really is not a whole lot of room to get INTO their closet. So we swapped!
We also cleaned the bathrooms. Butterfly loves to scrub those toilets!
Juice also cleaned out all the stuff that we probably won’t use and it’s sitting in the extra room waiting for us to go through it next Saturday.
Juice took pictures of the event because the kids were so happy to be helping out! He said, “You know you don’t clean enough when you have to take pictures to commemorate the event!”
I am NOT looking forward to going through my room.
Safire
Safirecleaning cleaning
Jun 23
Everyone,
This morning we went to the church so I could have a meeting with my primary presidency and so we could go through the closet at church. It’s always nice to know exactly where everything is in that closet! And boy did we have a lot of stuff.
Also, a mouse.
Yuck!
I spent 4 hours at the church cleaning that closet out (with my fellow primary presidency people) and got home around 3pm. After a quick lunch and a quick glance at my email, friends came to play. We broke out our blow up pool and the kids had a ball.
I love summer that you can do this kind of stuff with the kids! I also love that my kids are old enough to enjoy these kinds of things. And they are still young enough to enjoy these kinds of things. I’m really liking this stage.
After a fun dinner with our friends (hot dogs outside so they could play as long as possible), I went BACK to the church. I made smoothies with the 8-11 year old girls and we had a great time. We talked a lot about nutrition as well. I’m going to miss those girls. This was my last “official” meeting with them.
And now, I’m exhausted. Time for bed!
Safire
Safireall 3 kids, callings, church, cleaning church, cleaning, summer fun
Feb 11
Everyone,
Today’s weather: sunny and warm enough to start the icicles dripping. No flying snow in sight, unless you count all my neighbors digging out their cars and their sidewalks. We even did that a little bit today too. Although there was very little to shovel since we’d been doing it through the storm.
Juice worked from home today. I wish when he worked from home that he could play with us but sadly, that’s not the case. He did take the kids for a walk around the neighborhood while I was getting dinner ready. They came in about 2 minutes later saying there wasn’t much to see. More and more mounds of snow. Plus, I just threw whatever on them so they were not dressed to go trudging through the winter wonderland.
I cleaned my entire cupboard again today and found more weevils. Stupid annoying little pests. This time they were in my whole wheat flour. (Admittedly, the wheat and the flour are old but I was hoping to use them somehow!) Very sad about the flour because now I can’t make waffles in the morning like I had planned. And we are out of cereal. And hot chocolate. To add to the white flour, popcorn and sugar I was out of.
I did find about 10 lbs of beans and 7 cans of crushed pineapple so we’re good to go another week if need be. Hahaha!
They do say there’s going to be another storm on Monday though. Sigh…there go any plans I had for the weekend!
Safire
Safirecleaning, Juice's job, snow
Feb 01
Everyone,
So this morning started out like any other morning. The boys cried while I fixed their breakfasts and decided to eat in their high chairs this morning. They each had 3 bowls of cereal. It was great for me because yay they are eating! But not so fun in the high chairs. That means I can’t go upstairs and do something because they scream and cry and want to get down the minute I leave the room. This is why I love having a laptop because I just poked around online while they ate happily. Butterfly too.
Once they were finally eating and playing nicely, I went upstairs to do my exercising. Butterfly and Pirate have been fighting the past few days. I finally shut them in different rooms while I exercised.
Except some how the boys got out of their room and made their way downstairs. And found the cereal Butterfly left on the table. And dumped an entire bag of cereal on the floor. I finished working out and heard silence from the house. Uh-oh. I discovered the boys covered in cereal bits quite happily eating off the floor. Good thing I just steamed that floor clean!
I got out the little hand held vacuum and started to pick it all up. Then I moved to vacuuming up all the cobwebs in the corners and the grooves in the floor. I walked out of the kitchen with the intent of going to take a shower when I saw the heating vent cover in the middle of the living room floor. Huh. That’s not supposed to be there.
So I went to go put it away and discovered that they put blocks down the vent. Not just one or 2 blocks, at least 50. I’m not sure if I got them all or not. Also down there: crayons, little people, cars, a notebook!, and some of my kitchen spoons.
Seriously boys?!
They had sprinkled the vent generously with the aforementioned cereal. The heater was on so the cereal bits were blowing into my face as I’m digging out toys from the bowels of my house. I was up to my armpit in heater vent. Good thing I’m a member of the “green arm club” from college. Once you’ve stuck your arm up a horse or a cow, going down a dryer vent is no big deal.
I did vacuum up most of the crumbs from the dryer vent (and found 2 more blocks as they stuck to the vacuum tube) so hopefully we will not have pests from this lovely disaster.
Now an hour after I exercised, I am finally ready to shower. Only to have Professor trip while carrying milk and spill a full cup all over the carpet. Gah.
Seriously!
It’s been a very involved day already.
Safire
Safirecleaning, double trouble, life with twins
Jan 29
Everyone,
Today was a better day. Not a great day, just better than the past ones have been. Juice came home early as he often does on Fridays. He was able to cheer us up before naps. The boys were pretty miserable off and on today. Mostly it’s been Pirate who has been screaming today so that’s been a change. I think they both have a miserable cold.
Nuts. I hate it when the kids are sick.
While the boys napped and Butterfly played on the Wii, I just chilled out. Juice was in charge of the kids and I did nothing but poke around on the Internet and wonder why it takes me two tries every time to log into twitter.
Once the boys were up I got out my amazing steam cleaner and cleaned my kitchen. I steamed out my microwave…awesome. I steamed my counters, my sink faucets, the screen above the stove, and the floors. In half an hour. Seriously in love with the Oreck.
Juice picked up all the toys (and there were MANY) and vacuumed the house. I feel so much better with the house picked up and everything tidy.
Everyone went to bed early and Juice and I had a nice date on the couch watching a movie about John Keats. Okay, I had a nice time. I think he tolerated the movie for my sake. He’s so nice.
We’re off on an adventure tomorrow. We decided this after both the boys were hugging their coats and hanging on the door crying. Poor little Professor kept saying, “Ouuu? Ouuu? Ouuu?” Hopefully we won’t freeze to death while being ‘ouuu’.
Safire
Safirebad days, cleaning, Professor talks, sickness 2010
Jan 24
Everyone,
Today after I had been attack by several bottles of half used bug spray that were fly off the top of my fridge, I figured I should clean it. Right then and there. There was obviously too much stuff! It took about a minute to dump it all off the top of the fridge. It took almost 2 hours to put it back on.
An added bonus of cleaning this off…we could look in that cupboard that is above the fridge. Hadn’t seen that for awhile. Found a stash of baby bottles and some extra glasses and all my goblets. Huh…forgot those were there! Hopefully it won’t be 2 years before I see them again.
I forgot to wipe it off once it was clear. Oops. There honestly isn’t a whole lot left up there so I could probably do that another time. So what exactly was up there?
Dog stuff: nail clippers, flea/tick stuff, etc. That is all in it’s own basket and needed very little cleaning.
Recipes: holy cow do I have a lot of recipes I’ve never used. I spent the majority of my time going through them and throwing out ones I will NEVER use and know it.
Candy: Halloween candy, candy from a parade in September, candy from Christmas. The kids had candy all afternoon and barely ate their dinner. But we have a lot less candy! Yay!
Address labels: if I live here the rest of my life and die when I’m 100, I will NEVER have to buy address labels again. I think I may go through them and keep the ones I like and throw out the rest but I didn’t have time to do that today.
Movie Coupons: you know those movie things you can cut out from a cereal box and get free movies? I had 4 of them and enough coupons for 4 free movies. So I finally filled out the forms, addressed the envelopes and got them ready to mail. I may get my free movies sometime in the next 2 years. But hey, free movies!
Toys: toys that were broken and weren’t getting fixed, toys that were in time out, toys we didn’t want the kids to have. 6 beach balls, 4 things of bubbles, a kite, and various other stuff. We blew bubbles for awhile and after we stopped, Pirate cried around the house for an hour. “Bubbles! Buuubbles! Oh Bubbles!” I think he liked them.
I also found about 6 things of hand sanitizer, and 3 or 4 things of sun screen and of course, bug spray. Hopefully, now that I know where they are, I won’t buy any in the spring and use up what we have!
Safire
Safirecleaning
Jan 16
Everyone,
I’ve been working hard on the kids’ year videos. You know, pictures and movies set to music. I just finished Butterfly’s 3 year old video yesterday (yay!) and I realized that I have NO movies of her in it. Time to save up for a flip camera.
Juice went on a cleaning spree today. He vacuumed upstairs and down and decluttered our bedroom. I helped him with that one. It took us over 2 hours, 4 trips to the attic, and one really big bag of garbage but the floor is now decluttered. Next job, all the flat surfaces in there!
We finally pulled out all of our Little People that we put away to get ready for Christmas. I think the Christmas toys have been incorporated enough that we have the room for the rest of it. The kids are acting like it’s Christmas all over again. Love it!
My parents got the boys some little door frames for Christmas and Juice has built them a little house area. It’s so cute to see them ask each other to come in and cook and clean in there. Not so cute, the shoving out of the house. This is why we have two. Thanks Mom and Dad!
We all spent some much needed time at the park above our house this afternoon. It was 50 degrees today and none of us had coats on. We did have to drag Pirate into the house kicking and screaming though. That kid sure does love being outside!
Safire
Safirecleaning, daily stuff, outside, toys
Jul 31
Everyone,
Juice finished his work early this week and has a 3 day weekend for himself. Yay! We decided to go all out for his day off and let him sleep in until about 10am.
Juice and I were able to clean up our room a little bit and put at least 4 things in the attic and threw away one big garbage back of stuff. I am amazed at how much stuff has just gone into our room and stayed there. We dusted, straightened and de-cluttered for almost 2 hours today.
After the boys’ first naps, we took everyone over to the big warehouse store for lunch and grocery shopping. It’s sad when you run out of toilet paper.
As we were coming home, a HUGE rainstorm hit. We sat in the car in our parking lot feeling the car being pelted and blown around. I wished for a garage. Juice was kind enough to run inside and grab our big umbrella and took everyone inside.
Once inside, we had another round of naps. This time Butterfly actually took a nap. She woke up on the wrong side of the bed and was grouchy and cross all evening. Finally Juice gave her a kiss on the forehead and announced she was burning up. Yup, 103.4 degree fever. (She took the thermometer under he tounge and kept it there!) She went to bed early and Flower and Juice and I stayed up watching movies from Netflix.
Safire
Safirecleaning, grocery shopping, movies, rain
May 07
Everyone,
Things I have done today in list form because that’s all the brain power I have.
- baked 9 small round pizza crusts and one full pan for the party tomorrow
- went to the resource center and let the kids play…felt like a good mom
- went out to lunch, had a great time
- talked to my BFF Mink for 2 hours while everyone napped
- wrapped presents while talking to her
- cleaned some (not a lot) while talking to her…current topic: what to do when our parents are old and need 24 hour care (random I know but seriously, we talk about strange things and love it which is why she is my BFF)
- made broccoli salad for the first time for a church function tonight
- had 2 people ask me for the recipe which I amazingly remembered but still can’t finish a sentence if I wanted to
- went to the store for party food stuffs and our week’s worth of groceries
- picked up Butterfly’ birthday cake for tomorrow and a fruit tart for her actual birthday on Sunday
- enjoyed previously mentioned church function and didn’t learn a thing…which is good. I’m on the right track I think.
- lost my camera battery charger and went digging through the whole house for it
- Juice found it under my camera bag, after tearing up the whole house for it
- he ran into a moldy banana in the diaper bag and was TOTALLY grossed out for touching it…oops, I forgot that was in there
- tried to clean some tonight and gave up
- reminded myself that Juice has the day off tomorrow and can help me clean before the party in the afternoon
- going to bed later than I wanted to
- charging my camera battery! Yay pictures
Safire
SafireButterfly birthdays, camera stuff, cleaning, cooking, daily list, Mink and Spider
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